What is Health Informatics?

Health Informatics (HI) is an emerging discipline that is rapidly gaining prominence as countries around the world seek to manage and use health data appropriately and effectively.

Health Informatics is a discipline that deals with the collection, storage, retrieval, communication and optimal use of health related data, information and knowledge. It recognizes the role of citizens in their own health care as well as the information handling roles of the healthcare professionals, and is now considered a critically essential and pervasive element in sustainable health care delivery. There is a recognized need for the advancement and teaching of knowledge about the application of information and communication technologies to healthcare - the place where health, information and computer sciences, psychology, epidemiology and engineering intersect. (Health Informatics Society of Australia, 1994; UK Health Informatics Society, 2007)